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Can You Really Build a Sustainable Olympics?

By Christopher F. Schuetze July 22, 2012 6:00 amJuly 22, 2012 6:00 am

London 2012The basketball arena view from the Parklands.

From the beginning, Olympic games have left behind physical traces, whether in the form of the ruins at Olympia in Greece or, in modern times, in host cities dotting the world. Stadiums, stands and podiums often stay in place long after the last competitor has left the locker room.

Mark McDonald recently reported on the unused and dilapidated Chinese venues, which, just four years ago, during the 2008 Beijing summer games, seemed so shinny. Embarrassingly, the organizers of the Montreal summer games in 1976 didn’t finish construction on some of the venues until well after the athletic competitions were over.

The ultimate sustainable architectural mark of the Games may be not leaving a mark at all.

The 2012 London Games, which has made sustainability one of its watchwords, is focused on reducing the lasting imprint of the venues that house the events.

“The London 2012 venues have been designed to be as sustainable as possible, and where there was no need for permanent facility we have built temporary venues with materials that can be recycled and hired parts that can be reused,” wrote an Olympic Delivery Authority spokesman in an email.

The top half of the main Olympic stadium — the games’ showpiece — is temporary. The crown and 55,000 seats can be shed after it is done hosting the Olympic and the Paralympic Games.

There’s an undeniable tone of pride when organizers say that the 2012 Olympic stadium is built using just one third the amount of steel used in construction of the iconic Beijing bird’s nest of 2008.

The basketball court might the most temporary grand building in Olympic history. The 12,000-seat stadium consists of reusable spectator stands — like the ones at rodeos or concerts — and a ground floor consisting of court, infrastructure and changing rooms (with extra tall doors). The roof and the upper walls are merely scaffolding and a PCV membrane.

London 2012The Olympic basketball arena.

Olympic planners say this venue will be entirely dismantled and possibly reassembled some place else.

That does not mean, however, that the event itself is necessarily sustainable or particularly green.

London is expecting to host 600,000 additional overseas visitors during the Games. All those spectators will put an additional load on a dense urban area. They will need to be fed, transported, cooled (or, given the recent weather, heated), and kept safe, all of which will lead to additional environmental loads.